SPIRE Instrument

The SPIRE instrument (Spectral and Photometric Imaging REceiver) was developed by the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL), part of a partnership led by M. Griffin from the University of Wales in Cardiff. It comprises two distinct elements:

An imaging photometer with spider web bolometer arrays cooled to 300 mK and a 4x8’ field of view.			Credits RAL
		Photometer side view
A Fourier transform spectrometer with spider web bolometer arrays cooled to 300 mK and a 2.6x2.6’ field of view.			Credits RAL
		Spectrometer side view

Two French laboratories, the CEA’s DAPNIA (now IRFU) and LAM, took part in the SPIRE instrument’s development.

DAPNIA’s specific contribution was the development of SPIRE’s Detector Readout and Control Unit (DRCU): the instrument’s warm electronics (WE) comprising 4 sub-units divided in two boxes:

• Detector Control Unit (DCU), which controls the photometer and spectrometer sensors
• The Focal Plane Control Unit (FCU), which includes:
  
  • the MCU, which controls the focal plane’s Spectrometer Mechanism (SMECm) and the Beam Steering Mechanism (BSMm);
  • the SCU, which manages the thermometry, cooler, and calibration subsystems;
  • and the PSU, which supplies power to all subsystems.

LAM contributed to the SPIRE instrument by:

developing the Fourier Transform Spectrometer’s mechanism (SMECm)			Credits CNRS/LAM/CNES
designing the MCU electronics to control mechanisms
building the spectrometer and photometer optics (mirrors and alignments)			Credits CNRS/LAM/CNES